Chapter 33 · Tomorrow on His Skin

"Don't touch him."

Vittal's hand was already on his sword when Rhys hit the doorway. The boy — Corin, nine years old, alive, dirt still in his hair — sat frozen on the cot with his arm stretched out like it didn't belong to him anymore.

Black ink. Fresh. Running up the inside of his forearm in tight, careful letters.

A name that wasn't the boy's.

A date that said tomorrow.

"Let me see," Rhys said.

"I said don't—"

Rhys crossed the room in four steps and grabbed the kid's wrist. Vittal's blade came half out of the sheath and stopped an inch from his throat.

Neither of them moved.

"Look at the letters," Rhys said. His voice came out steady even with steel kissing his skin. "Not the words. The letters."

Vittal looked. His jaw locked.

"That's not a child's hand."

"No." Rhys held his own forearm up next to the boy's, side by side under the lamp. The loop on the K. The flat cross on the T. Identical. "It's mine."

Vittal's sword pressed closer. "Then you tell me why my son is wearing your handwriting. Tell me why it says tomorrow."

"I don't know."

"Not. Good. Enough."